WILL DOWNTOWN Seattle 24 Hour Fitness Club ever open? Even though memberships to the club have been on sale since March 2000, the facility is a long way from up and running. Penn Clark, a company spokesman, says the facility at 1220 Howell (near where Denny crosses I-5), which was originally slated to open in January 2001, will become operational in July.

Whether the club will open by the July deadline is debatable, however, says project manager Jamie Ho, whose firm, Freiheit & Ho Architects, is overseeing the project. “They could make it, if they worked real hard,” Ho says skeptically. “But it’s a five-month project and they are just getting onto the site now.”

Clark explains that the advance memberships are sold at bargain rates and enable downtown members to use other 24 Hour Fitness facilities throughout the Puget Sound region (although the nearest one to downtown is in West Seattle). 24 Hour Fitness also operates a “provisional” club at Eighth and Olive with exercise equipment and a multitude of trainers, according to Clark.

While several complaints have been made about the facility to Seattle Weekly, the Better Business Bureau has received no formal complaints and the state attorney general’s consumer division has received only one.

The attorney general’s office did some preliminary investigation and found that the club let a mandatory $150,000 bond, a kind of insurance to guarantee consumer refunds for all fitness clubs under construction, expire in November. Club managers say the expiration was an “oversight” and a new bond that remains good until July now protects consumers.

LEAH KOHLENBERG info@seattleweekly.com